SHA holds first of two meetings to gain citizen

comment on bridge and RT. 4 designs

SOLOMONS (Oct. 3) --- The diagram at left shows one of two possibilities for dealing with a new bridge at Solomon's, crossing the Patuxent River.  Sen. Roy Dyson (D. St. Mary's, Calvert, Charles) has succeeded in having the State of Maryland act to begin the process of design and planning for a new bridge.  One design is to build a parallel structure and the other is is to build a replacement bridge. At right are SHA officials and citizens reviewing the Rt. 4 redesign, which will take place on the St. Mary's side of the river and for the bridge. This meeting took place at Dowell Elementary School last night. The plans include a pedestrian and bike walkway making it convenient for jumpers.  SHA officials said that a grill on top of the rail would be included to make jumping less possible.  Timothy Hoofnagle remains the sole know survivor of jumping off the bridge.  He did so after a police chase in which he tossed out cocaine from his window and when trapped near the top of the bridge, casually stepped over the side, swam to Seven Gables Island and was quickly nabbed by Maryland State Trooper Joe Appleby and his K-9 dog. Hoofnagle was flown to a shock trauma center and lives to brag about it. 
ST. MARY'S TODAY photos  


This aerial photo shows Seven Gables Island which is the last land connection for the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge in the St. Mary's side of the Patuxent River. The bridge may be replaced entirely or have a second span built next to it, but either plan will involve using the same approaches and footprint of the existing bridge, according to SHA officials at the Dowell public meeting held this week.  Another viewing of projected bridge structures and Rt. 4 expansion plans will be held at Town Creek Elem. on Oct. 9th from 5 to 8 pm. ST. MARY'S TODAY photo   Photo at right is of Solomon's firefighters launching a fireboat to search for a bridge jumper.  Photo for ST. MARY'S TODAY by Betsy Fehn

If the SHA builds another parallel span to the existing bridge it would include a shoulder, two lanes and a walk and bike lane on a span which is about twice the width of the existing bridge.   At right is a line of traffic waiting to cross from Calvert to St. Mary's as workers repair metal panels on the bridge and reduce traffic to one lane.  Inspections take place about every two years.  SHA says the bridge deck needs to be replaced in about 15 years but for now the bridge is in satisfactory condition.

This view of a typical crash scene on the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge shows how the lack of a shoulder lane for wrecks or stalled vehicles stops traffic in both directions.  A vehicle with a flat tire can do the job for an hour and a half in the middle of rush hour.  SHA used to station an emergency vehicle on Rt. 235 to keep traffic moving, quickly towing or pushing vehicles out of the roadway, but no such support for the bridge is provided.  The bridge carries Rt. 4 traffic to the Naval Air Warfare Center and SHA officials have long ignored it's importance to the local economy.  When the bridge was shut down for 3 months, the officials running the Department of Transportation during the Schaefer Administration sent a fleet of a half dozen small boats, capable of carrying a couple dozen people each, to plug the gap.  People had to park in the mud and the dark until the Governor's office received thousands of flyers from stranded motorists demanding car ferries.   The SHA admits that should the bridge shut down again, they have no contingency plan other than to advise people to drive back up Rt. 4 to Benedict and cross the Patuxent over to Hughesville.   ST. MARY'S TODAY photo by Natalie Himes

The steel bands wrapped around the tops of the support columns appear above the cracks which are still visible and opened up on the piers in 1988, forcing the bridge to be closed while barges with large cranes were towed to the scene to place the supporting bands.   The State of Maryland insists that the bridge is safe. It opened to traffic in 1977 and from the beginning has been an orphan child of the State, which didn't provide any access road on the St. Mary's side until 1982.  The bridge dumped out onto the old Patuxent Beach Road which quickly deteriorated under all the traffic, was pitted with potholes and essentially was the same old paved cowpath which had served the area since 1900 when cars first began to move around. Even now, the State wouldn't be doing anything had Senator Dyson not bypassed the bureaucrats and directly moved to legislation requiring the SHA to build a new bridge at Solomon's.  Dyson is now doing the same legislative maneuver with commuter rail.  "It is so simple," said Dyson on Wednesday, "We have existing CSX tracks into Southern Maryland to Aquasco and Morgantown, running through Upper Marlboro, Croom, Waldorf, White Plains, and La Plata, lets put trains on those tracks."

This profile view of the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge is the scenic one often used in tourist brochures, but taken from the other direction.  For those who must use the bridge every day to go to work it's scenic values are far less impressive.  This view is from Seven Gables Island, which formerly was the site of the old Seven Gables Hotel, now the site of a marina and boatel. Without any significant historic preservation policy in place, one after another of the old hotels have been torn down, one of them by the State of Maryland itself at Point Lookout, which it turned it into a parking lot for the fishing pier.  St. Mary's County attempted to abandon its historic courthouse ten years ago but ran into a buzzsaw of citizen opposition led by Sen. Roy Dyson and Commissioner Larry Jarboe ( R.Golden Beach) and decided to renovate and expand the courthouse, which resulted in a renaissance of Leonardtown which is now booming. Historic preservation is more of a bumper sticker in St. Mary's than a reality.  In Solomon's its hard to hammer a nail without first going through an architectural review even for signs. 

This aerial map of Calvert and St. Mary's Counties shows the connecting bridge over the Patuxent River, which is the deepest inland river in the U.S. just north of the bridge at Point Patience. Patuxent River Naval Air Station is south of the bridge at the mouth of the Patuxent at the Chesapeake Bay.    A Solomon's fireboat brings a body to shore of a jumper from the Gov. Thomas Johnson Bridge in May of this year.   Officials say that they are looking at ways to erect barriers to jumpers. Those with family members who exhibit signs of being depressed can seek help from the Walden Counseling Center 24 hour help line or from local pastors at any church.   ST. MARY'S TODAY photo
Timothy Hoofnagle, who goes by "Hoof" ran from cops while he dumped cocaine out his window and led the posse of deputies up on top of the bridge where he was blocked and he jumped, swam to shore and was captured. Here he is declining in health and was shortly thereafter flown from the scene.  He was captured by Maryland State Trooper Joe Appleby. ST. MARY'S TODAY photo

120 Turn Out for Bridge / Rt. 4 Public Meeting

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

SOLOMON’S  --- More than 120 people came to the Dowell Elementary School on Tuesday night for a public meeting to review various designs of the State Highway Administration for reducing the traffic bottleneck of Rt. 4 and the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge.
Appearing at the design meeting where citizens were given the opportunity to view graphic layouts of the bridge sections, road designs and alternate solutions to the horrible tie-ups on the bridge, were Sen. Roy Dyson (D. St. Mary’s, Calvert, Charles)  and four of the Calvert County Commissioners (Wilson, Clark, Shaw and Stinnett).  

The Rt. 4 expansion project will not take in the Rt. 4 / 235 but state highway planners admit that the intersection is in a failed status and solutions including an overpass are being considered.

Rt. 4 traffic heading to the bridge often backs up to Rt. 235 and then back a couple of miles with traffic just trying to cross the Patuxent River, even without the daily diet of crashes, breakdowns and some drivers who simply stop on the bridge to take pictures and some to jump.

The possible changes to Rt. 4 are being brought about by pressure from Sen. Roy Dyson who introduced bills in the past two legislative sessions calling on the State Department of Transportation to begin planning for a second bridge span.

All intersections on the stretch of Rt. 4 between Rt. 235 and the bridge are in a failed status, according to the SHA.

The 2007 traffic volume on Rt. 235 north of Rt. 4 is 40,300 daily; Rt. 235 south of Rt. 4 soars to 55,800 daily; Rt. 4 from Rt. 235 to bridge carries about 28,000 vehicles daily.   SHA staff reports that the overall traffic volume on Rt. 4 has doubled in recent years.

The BRAC process which decides which military bases will stay open and which will close has been underway since the mid 1980’s.   Since 1992, Congressman Steny Hoyer has been instrumental in making the case to the BRAC commission in protecting the missions at Webster Field, Pax River and the Naval Ordinance lab at Indian Head. All of these bases have grown in size as various facilities have been relocated to the area bases, with the workforce at Pax River growing by at least 7,000 employees to levels over 21,000.  In addition, the hi-tech defense contract community has blossomed with firms such as Smartronics expanding to other types of work not related to military and expanding their workforce. 

The cost of the Rt. 4 planning phase of the study is $1.5 million, according to the SHA.
More on this project from SHA